An international team of researchers involving the University of Adelaide is tackling the controversy over what some scientists consider to be a "harmful" hormone, arguing that it could be a game changer in the fight against ...

Starting in 1993 and ending in 2001, ten academic medical centers in the United States screened 76,685 men and 78,216 women for prostate, lung, colorectal and ovarian cancers. The question was whether yearly screening could ...

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and other biomarkers are essential tools for diagnosing and monitoring prostate cancer. However, biomarkers to selectively identify patients with high risk of recurrence, those who might benefit ...

UCLA researchers have discovered a previously unrecognized type of progenitor cell that, though rare in most regions of the human prostate, is found in uncommonly high numbers in inflamed areas of the gland. These progenitor ...

If, when, and how men with negative biopsies for prostate cancer should continue to be monitored are questions facing patients and health care providers in view of concerns and criticisms about over detection, overtreatment, ...

In 2015, there were an estimated 17.5 million cancer cases around the globe and 8.7 million deaths, according to a new report from the Global Burden of Disease Cancer Collaboration published online by JAMA Oncology.

While cancer is the world's second leading cause of death after cardiovascular diseases, the chances of getting cancer and dying from it look radically different depending on where you live, according to a new analysis of ...

In recent years, cancer patients have benefited from a new array of weapons to fight the disease. Traditional chemotherapy and radiation therapy—blunt clubs aimed at any fast-growing cell in the body—have been augmented ...

Patients with the same illness often receive the same treatment, even if the cause of the illness is different for each person. This represents a new step towards ultimately being able to offer every patient more personalised ...

Munich, Germany: A strategy of alternately flooding and starving the body of testosterone is producing good results in patients who have metastatic prostate cancer that is resistant to treatment by chemical or surgical castration, ...

In 2016, more than 180,890 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, the second leading cause of cancer death in men. Next to skin cancers, prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in American men.

New research demonstrates that a novel imaging agent can quickly and accurately detect metastasis of prostate cancer, even in areas where detection has previously been difficult. Published in the December issue of The Journal ...

Knowing the likely course of cancer can influence treatment decisions. Now a new prediction model published today in Lancet Oncology offers a more accurate prognosis for a patient's metastatic castration-resistant prostate ...

Prostate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. Most prostate cancers are slow growing; however, there are cases of aggressive prostate cancers. The cancer cells may metastasize (spread) from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly the bones and lymph nodes. Prostate cancer may cause pain, difficulty in urinating, problems during sexual intercourse, or erectile dysfunction. Other symptoms can potentially develop during later stages of the disease.

Rates of detection of prostate cancers vary widely across the world, with South and East Asia detecting less frequently than in Europe, and especially the United States. Prostate cancer tends to develop in men over the age of fifty and although it is one of the most prevalent types of cancer in men, many never have symptoms, undergo no therapy, and eventually die of other causes. This is because cancer of the prostate is, in most cases, slow-growing, symptom-free, and since men with the condition are older they often die of causes unrelated to the prostate cancer, such as heart/circulatory disease, pneumonia, other unconnected cancers, or old age. On the other hand, the more aggressive prostate cancers account for more cancer-related mortality than any other cancer except lung cancer. About two-thirds of cases are slow growing, the other third more aggressive and fast developing.

Many factors, including genetics and diet, have been implicated in the development of prostate cancer. The presence of prostate cancer may be indicated by symptoms, physical examination, prostate-specific antigen (PSA), or biopsy. The PSA test increases cancer detection but does not decrease mortality. Moreover, prostate test screening is controversial at the moment and may lead to unnecessary, even harmful, consequences in some patients. Nonetheless, suspected prostate cancer is typically confirmed by taking a biopsy of the prostate and examining it under a microscope. Further tests, such as CT scans and bone scans, may be performed to determine whether prostate cancer has spread.

Management strategies for prostate cancer should be guided the severity of the disease. Many low-risk tumors can be safely followed with active surveillance. Curative treatment generally involves surgery, various forms of radiation therapy, or, less commonly, cryosurgery; hormonal therapy and chemotherapy are generally reserved for cases of advanced disease (although hormonal therapy may be given with radiation in some cases).

The age and underlying health of the man, the extent of metastasis, appearance under the microscope and response of the cancer to initial treatment are important in determining the outcome of the disease. The decision whether or not to treat localized prostate cancer (a tumor that is contained within the prostate) with curative intent is a patient trade-off between the expected beneficial and harmful effects in terms of patient survival and quality of life.

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